When he was asked why more scientific advisers were not openly criticizing the president, De Niro said, “it’s Shakespearean, the whole thing, you’ve got a lunatic saying things that people are trying to dance around. They’re doing it in the hearings a little more, trying to say tactfully that this is what will happen, Fauci is doing that.”

“It’s appalling. [Trump]wants to be re-elected. He doesn’t even care how many people die,” he added.

De Niro commended the way New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo handles the crisis, saying that he’s “done a great job. He’s done what Trump should have done, but he doesn’t have a clue how to do that.”

Newsnight host Emily Maitlis said the president’s supporters might balk at his remarks, in which De Niro responded: “The people he pretends to care about are the people he has the most disdain for because he could care less about them. They might like to tell themselves that and delude themselves but he doesn’t care about them.”